Furfural: 6 Steps to Medicine
Turing Biomass into Medicine
A method of synthesis has been developed to turn furfual into indolo[3,2-c]quinolines (an antimalarial alkaloid isocryptolepine and its derivatives), reports the Journal of Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry (Issue 36, 2012).
The work was undertaken by a team of Russian scientists who are “dealing with the development of procedures for transformations of furfural into diverse furan derivatives and a broad variety of other heterocycles.4 Recently, we have discovered a simple route from furfural (1) to 3-(2-acylvinyl)-2-(hetero)arylindoles” (Org. Biomol. Chem., 2012, 10, 7262)
